Staunton, April 25 – Vladimir Putin’s promotion of the idea that Moscow must preserve “the Russian world” has already led to the transformation of his country into something very different than it was before, but the shakiness of its three main foundations is such that it is unlikely to survive for very long, according to […]
U.S. Vice President Joe Biden is in Kiev today and is scheduled to meet with the leaders of the interim government. Meanwhile, separatists have captured more buildings, and Russian and the West continue to escalate the rhetoric, each blaming the other for an increasingly tense standoff. Yesterday’s liveblog can be found here. For an overview […]
Staunton, April 20 – Vladislav Surkov, who has served as a behind-the-scenes ideologist and operator for the Kremlin, has been involved in the funding of a Russian website that has done everything it can to boost Vladimir Putin and that now is producing lists of “national traitors,” according to Valery Shiryayev of Novaya Gazeta. That […]
Staunton, April 20 – Russian actions in eastern Ukraine are intensifying anti-Russian feelings among Ukrainians living there, deepening a divide between the Ukrainian and Russian communities there even as some in Moscow question whether the Russian speakers in eastern Ukraine should be considered ethnic Russians at all. That Moscow’s moves in Ukraine are infuriating Ukrainians […]
Staunton, April 20 – The US Department of State has declared that Washington will never recognize Russia’s annexation of Crimea, but such declarations, important as they are, need to be given real content to ensure that no part of the government, intentionally or otherwise, takes steps that undermine that policy. In short, what is needed […]
Staunton, April 19 – Throughout history, Russians have been often been enthusiastic about government programs proclaiming “the in-gathering of Russian lands,” only to discover that such efforts inevitably involve increasing repression against themselves and are in fact “a holy war” by the government against them in the name of strengthening itself, Oleg Noskov says. In […]
Staunton, April 19 – Aleksandr Dugin, the Eurasianist leader who enjoys enormous influence in the Kremlin, says that countries adjoining the Russian Federation “can preserve their territorial integrity only by maintaining good relations with Russia” and that those who cross Moscow can have no such expectations. In an interview published in Yerkramas, a newspaper directed […]
Staunton, April 19 – Despite having achieved so many of his goals with the Geneva Accords on Ukraine, few doubt that Vladimir Putin will violate them and push even further into that country, using surrogates to allow him deniability for a time and then the Russian military openly when he decides the time is right, […]
Staunton, April 19 – In a demonstration of principled toughness, Mustafa Cemilev, the longtime leader of the Crimean Tatars and a member of Ukraine’s Verkhovna Rada, has very publicly returned to his homeland after declaring that he remains a Ukrainian citizen and that some in Moscow are thinking about a new deportation of his people. […]
Staunton, April 15 – That Russia’s Anschluss of Crimea has re-ordered the international landscape is now common ground as countries around the world recalibrate their foreign policies in the face of what appears to be a fait accompli. But this annexation is also having a dizzying impact on the Russian Federation’s own nationalities. Indeed, in […]
